Blood and Karma
by missmissyeyes
Summary: Jace came to one realization: he couldn't be a kid anymore. He had to man up and face his problems head-on, even if that meant upsetting a certain young woman. Jace/Clary oneshot. Takes place around the end of City of Ashes.


Blood and Karma

Jace always watched.

He had watched her speak, her voice echoing a tranquil melody. He had watched her scarlet, fiery hair whipping through the wind – flowing in a crown around her head. He had watched the strands rip through the calm, azure sky; making it look like an ocean, blood churning in its waves.

Her grass-green eyes showed vacancy, yet they were filled to the brink in notion. Her soft, pink lips formed the words of deceit. Words of anguish. Words of adoration. Words that said uncertainty… words he had thought were lies.

If her white, flushed hands trembled in agony… he'd just long to touch them once again. Even if they were ashen claws, ready to sink into his flesh… he'd touch and caress them as if they were small children – rather than the demons that dared to tear him… open him up and tear him to shreds.

If she had said "I can't be with you," trembling in no such calamity, "you're my brother. You're my blood." He wouldn't only tremble in fear, or loneliness… but in astonishment. If her emerald orbs dared to pool in lust, and not disgust – he would only be saved by the feeling of the cold stones imbedded, deep in his chest. They not only stopped him from hurting himself – hurting her, serving as a barrier – it had also reminded him of many things he couldn't dare forget.

How he couldn't grasp his own loved one without shunning himself of disgust. How he couldn't even look at her, or even glance – not because he wasn't allowed or forbidden to, but because he couldn't let himself drag down into another taboo. And, obviously, it hurt.

It hurt as if he were swallowing knives, nails. Things that would cut into his throat, and drag itself down – push itself into him internally, and lodge itself into him always. Blood would drip down and out his throat, drowning his heart and lungs in a crimson-black ink that couldn't ever be erased. It would forever taint his lips, and drip out like a poison.

As time went on, he realized he was just hiding. He realized he was just being a coward. He realized he was a stupid, stupid child who couldn't even solve his own problems on his own – at least not anymore, as he had repeatedly turned to his father, Valentine, regardless of his family's and friend's protests and adheres.

Though he knew damn well he wasn't going to turn against them, he felt comfort in his father. Valentine was just the same as before, as if he had never faked his death and missed the last dozen years of his son's life. Though Jace knew he shouldn't feel any good, but sad, even angry at his father, it had felt amazing – amazing to think like he had a father again.

But he wasn't a child anymore; he was a man. A man that had to face his own problems head on, take it in his hands and stab it with dozens of knives on end. Could he even do _that?_ Something others would think of as _so_ simple – so easy, so effortless?

No; he couldn't. There was no way he could look into her eyes and just say _no_. There was no way he could look at her: that nameless child, that nameless little girl that took him apart, piece by piece and say _I'm sorry_. There was no way he could listen to her protests, pleads: as he was sure she would tear his heart out of his chest, eat his lungs and spit them back out again.

His own past words echoed through his head, torturing him – making him even more depressed by the second. _Declarations of __love__ amuse me. Especially when __unrequited_.

He remembered all the times he had made fun of Isabelle and her never-ending love issues, and he remembered all the times he had pestered Alec to, for once, get a girlfriend. He even remembered all the times he'd catch of glimpse of those mundane shows and complain about _every single one_ of their inner conflicts.

"Yeah," he chuckled. Despite the typically comical gesture, he had put his head in his hands. "Karma sure is a bitch."


End file.
